North Carolina legislators did a fine job when they crafted their Identity Theft Protection Act in 2005 except for one detail; the law still allows anyone to request government records containing personal information.

In fact, the 2005 law doesn’t even require that county clerks of court redact personal information from records already posted on the Internet.

The new legislation did go a long way toward protecting North Carolinians.

• Consumers were permitted to place freezes on their credit reports.
• Businesses were made to notify their customers of any data breaches, and required to destroy documents containing personal information rather that simply throwing them in the trash.
• Banks were no longer allowed to place personal information on housing documents.

But the new law didn’t do anything to protect North Carolinians’ personal information from North Carolina county officials. (more…)

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All the mail shredding in the world might not be enough to protect you from identity theft. It’s all a matter of who you trust you’re your private information. Your lawyer? State agencies? Think again.

Though much is said about high-tech computer hackers, private and public agencies might be the biggest threat many of us face.

Here are a couple recent examples of the sort of irresponsibility that puts us all at risk of becoming victims of identity thieves:

Aug. 12, 2008 Child Protective Services
(San Antonio, TX)

Hundreds of private, personal records were discarded with the trash, including records detailing medical histories of clients with diseases and drug addictions. Documents showing sexual abuse and information that could be used for identity theft, such as Social Security numbers, were also found in the trash. (more…)

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